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Why You Should Be Writing Down Your Goals

We hear a lot about the importance of goal-setting, but most of us don’t have clear and measurable goals to work towards. Even fewer of us actually have those goals written down. Lewis Carroll says, “any road will get you there, if you don’t know where you are going,” but how important are goals really and if they are vital, how can we make them most effective? There was a fascinating study conducted on the 1979 Harvard MBA program where graduate students were asked “have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” The result, only 3% had written goals and plans, 13% had goals but they weren’t in writing and 84% had no goals at all. Ten years later, the same group was interviewed again and the result was absolutely mind-blowing.

The 13% of the class who had goals, but did not write them down was earning twice the amount of the 84% who had no goals. The 3% who had written goals were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97% of the class combined! While this study only looks at earnings to quantify success, I still find it to be an extremely motivating example of why creating clear and measurable goals and writing them down is a key to success. Feeling motivated? Here are four steps to creating clear and measurable goals that will lead you to huge success.

Create a Vision

The first step to creating a goal is to figure out what you want. If you don’t know what you want, you don’t know what you need to achieve to get there. This is actually the fun part. You get to dream. What do you really want to create for yourself? What does your ideal life look like? Don’t be afraid to think big. Take fifteen minutes and document your vision. Take note of the details. What does your day look like? Where are you living? Try to incorporate all senses in your vision to make it most effective. What do you see, hear, smell, taste and feel throughout this ideal day?

Make it Measurable

Take your vision and turn it into a written list of concrete goals. If in your ideal world you are working for yourself, one of your goals might be to start your own company. Choose an achievable time frame to accomplish your goals, as well as measurable details, so you know exactly when you’ve achieved them. What exactly does it mean to start your own company? Make sure to set yourself up for success by creating goals that are realistic and achievable in the given time-frame.

Set Benchmarks

Most of our goals are a build-up of small achievements, sometimes even years of many small successes. Break your goals into small actionable steps and assign realistic time frames to each. Continue to break big steps into smaller and smaller steps until goals seem less daunting and achievable. Benchmarks are a great way to keep you on track. You may find you are moving more quickly or slowly than you expected. That’s not a problem, you can adjust! Adjust your expectations and timeline as you gather more information while achieving your benchmarks.

Celebrate Your Success

I believe the most important part of goal-setting is celebrating our successes. How will you reward yourself for hitting your benchmarks along the way? How will you celebrate once you’ve reached your goal? As we journey to the realization of our goals, it’s important to remember our vision. Why we want something can provide us with the motivation and determination to continue to work toward it even when things don’t go as planned or are more difficult than we anticipated.

From now on, choose to be among the most successful people and write down your goals. Create a vision for what you want, turn that into a list of measurable goals, set benchmarks and celebrate your successes along the way.

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You may want to check out GoalsOnTrack, a very nicely built web app designed for tracking goals, habits, and todo lists, and supports time tracking too. It’s clear, focused, easy to navigate, and most of all, really works!

The way I see it people need to take life into their own hands now days, you can do that by learning how to trade the markets. I’ve been learning to the website Traders Superstore they have excellent videos and I just got their deal they are running and I’m very happy with their course material. The instructor is a very knowledgeable trader. I’ve been doing really well so far and my goal is within one month to quit my job and I believe I can do it.

Unfortunately, there was no such study at Harvard in 1979, nor one at Yale in 1953. This story has been going around for a long time, varying between the two schools. There are several different places where this was debunked. A recent debunking was at http://sidsavara.com/personal-productivity/fact-or-fiction-the-truth-about-the-harvard-written-goal-study

Bravo for calling this out. I hold Forbes to a higher standard than this and am disappointed to see this tale retold. There’s so much more to talk about when it comes to goals, we don’t need to rely on non-facts. Ran Kivetz, PhD at Columbia, Scott Jeffrey, PhD at Monmouth University, and scholars at Carnegie Mellon are actively studying the impact of goals and goal setting on performance. Check ‘em out!

This study has certainly stood the test of time. Accountability to your dreams is essential. The importance of practicing “Dreaming on Paper” followed by thinking and goal setting on paper cannot be overstated.

Ashley, this is a good article on goal setting. For those that would like some coaching and examples on setting SMART goals, please visit my site at define-smart-goals.com. I also share some thoughts on investing at the-objective-investor.com.

I’m a coach who read this myth in the early years of my practice, and later found out it had been debunked. I’m glad to see someone else called it out in the comments below, and hope Forbes corrects the article. Both Harvard and Yale have denied knowledge of the study referenced above and the Yale equivalent that have been cited as ‘factual’ with no reference to an actual study. See Harvard’s response here http://asklib.hcl.harvard.edu/a.php?qid=200066 (which contains a link to Yale).

Where does Forbes get its contributors? This “1979 study” done at Harvard or Yale (its different whether your source is Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, or Tony Robbins), is a complete fabrication. You’re basing your article on an urban legend, which you would’ve discovered if you spent 20 seconds on google.

I wish I could believe your fantasyland where writing down a goal will launch me into making 10 times what others make, but sadly, life’s a bit more complicated than that.

There was no such study at Harvard in 1979, nor one at Yale in 1953. This is just like the myth, “We only use 10% of our brain,” and other such tales. http://sidsavara.com/personal-productivity/fact-or-fiction-the-truth-about-the-harvard-written-goal-study

Sorry…you are spreading an urban myth about the written goals. Try it: you won’t find the study. However, another study was done showing that written goals make you 50% more likely to succeed. Always site your study source!!!!

Heres a site to show that your comments about the harvard study is an urban myth. https://rapidbi.com/harvard-yale-written-goals-study-fact-or-fiction/ . This study was never published in a journal but the research is valid and it explains the myth: http://www.dominican.edu/academics/ahss/undergraduate-programs/psych/faculty/fulltime/gailmatthews/researchsummary2.pdf